GEO Secretariat Geneva, Switzerland 9th May, 2013

1. Building on the GEOSS : GEO Cold Region extending from regional to global effort ---A attempt to go GEO Secretariat Geneva, Switzerland 9th May, 2013

2. Forward – As part of the Water SBA, the “Cold Region” is an observation target area which relates strongly to frozen water in its various forms -- Cryosphere (and therefore relates to many other national, regional and international programs and efforts). But, many of the issues are also relevant to other SBAs – Biodiversity, Climate, Disasters, Ecosystems, Energy, Health and Weather, and therefore many of the 26 Tasks in the Work Plan.

3. WA-01-C3: Information Service for Cold Region Developing through a number of activities, which can be divided into three categories : • General Descriptions • Archive, manage, and provide access to in-situ and remotely-sensed metadata and data sets for monitoring Cryosphere through appropriate national, regional and global systems and centres. • Archive, manage, and provide access to in-situ and remotely sensed data sets and associated data for monitoring Cold Regions (especially, the Ecosystem and Biodiversity) through appropriate national, regional, and global systems and centres.

4. Observations and Information • Conduct a distributed cyber(e)-infrastructure to collect, manage, publish and share polar research results and implement multi-disciplinary interoperability following a Brokering approach, supporting SCAR data policy and in accordance with European and international standards, including GEO/GEOSS, INSPIRE. • Fully aware of all the cryosphere projects applied for at 20 of INTERACT's > 50 research stations, with the INTERACT’s infrastructure project which base in northern Europe, Russia, US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland, and to build capacity for research and monitoring in the European Arctic and beyond, and is offering access to numerous research stations through the Transnational Access program. The INTERACT is also offering metadata and some datasets and possibilities for additional observations required by GEO. INTERACT would be prepared to try to validate remotely sensed data. • Provide the parameter data product and tools/systems/models to the GEO DataCORE.Implement the information service for Cold Regions, for example, the CryoClimcryospheric climate monitoring. • Provide the polar station observation and satellite data coordination through appropriate national, regional and global systems and centres. • Promote the integration with integrated atmospheric and climatic observation and modeling data from a network of high-altitude mountain stations in the Alps, Himalaya-Karakoram, Rwenzori and Andes in the framework of the Ev-K2-CNR SHARE program and the national Italian project NextData.

5. Coordination and Programs • Build a polar data catalogue through integrated observation and modeling data from the broad range of “International Polar Year” research activities. The CAFF/CBMP – Polar data catalogue is on services : http://www.polardata.ca/ . • As a component of the Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) portal, establish a Cryosphere Constellation of Portals by linking existing and proposed portals of Cryospheric information. • Support the development of sustained and coordinated pan‐Arctic observing and data sharing systems that serve societal needs. Improve the networking among existing observing systems and sites to create pan‐Arctic observing networks. Promote the implementation of the Sustainable Arctic Observation Network (SAON). • Integrate the Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) and the CryoClim cryospheric climate monitoring service into GEOSS • Implementation the Third Pole Environment program and AlpineMountain ecosystem observations. • And other individuals (with GEO volunteer mechanism) who are interested in this Cold Region efforts.

6. The Group - WA-01-C3: Information services for GEO Cold Region Cold Region Group 35 International Program Member Country efforts PO efforts – CEOS/WMO/ GEO SBAs Research Teams Individuals … Cryosphere Ecosystem Biodiversity Water Climate Agriculture … 70

7. The main participants are • Canada, China, Denmark, EC, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, UK, USA, ICIMOD, WMO, INTERACT, CAFF, SAON, TPE, PSTG/WMO • CliC/WCRP, SOOS/SCAR, IASC and AMAP, SCAR for information • Other Task Contribution from Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Water and Climate SBAs and etc.

8. GEO Cold Region - Conception The GEO Cold Region idea keeps the “Cold Region” as the observation target area, which relates strongly to frozen water in its various forms, associated with influence of Water (Cryosphere), Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Health, Energy, Disaster, Climate, Weather and even Agriculture issues. Most of these issues are relevant to the GEOSS nine Societal Benefit Areas and therein the implementation of 26 associated tasks. Cold Region has its cross cutting nature in the GEOSS framework.

9. Disaster Health Agriculture Cold Region Its CORE are the Cryospheric Components (solid water) Three Poles - cross continents It includes snow, sea ice, lake and river ice, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, permafrost and seasonally frozen ground, and solid precipitation GEO nine Societal Benefit Areas Water Climate Energy Weather Ecosystem Biodiversity

10. Motivations and Vision • Recognize that Cold Region is the most fragile ecosystem in the world, which not only includes the South and North Poles, but also the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateau); • Provide spatially Cross Continent Observation Coordination and Cross Cutting Application Domain Observation Synergy based on the scientific oriented driving; To fulfil the observation gap in the far and hard-to-reach cold region by satellite and in-situ data through the global platform of GEO; • Implement the observation strategy and provide a proactive framework for the development of information and related services for the “Future Earth” research initiative and to assess the sustainable development ability addressed in Rio+20; • Strengthen the partnerships with policy-makers, stakeholders, and funders over the cold region ecological and engineering fields; • Facilitate the national infrastructure and capacity building as a whole effort in Cold Region from GEO Members and POs, especially over the nine Societal Benefit Areas.

11. The GEO Cold Region builds on the GEOSS Broker system and work with the exiting efforts, fully leverage the GEOSS Common Interface (GCI) infrastructure,

12. The Coordination Regime and Composition of GEO Cold Region • Basically, a GEO Cold Region Task would be a combination of, • Global Cryosphere Observations • Cold Region Ecosystems and Biodiversity Observations (EC-01, BI-01) • Information Service for Cold Region (Infrastructure, Data sharing, WA-01-C3) • Global Change-Cold Region perspective (EC-01, SB-01 and Climate)

13. How to work?Need Framework?Or Community Of Practice (COP)A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE (COP) IS, A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO SHARE A CRAFT AND/OR A PROFESSIONAsAdvisory Function?

14. There are 26 tasks, including 60 components, Information Service for Cold Region is now under the WA-01-C3 component.

15. Thoughts Ministerial Summit Plenary (Decision Makers) The Third Part Organization (ICSU, UNDP…) GEO Cold Region Cross Cutting Task Partnerships (Systems) GEO Cold Region (Panel/Board/System?) GEOSS Communities (Users and Stakeholders) Projects Programs 9 SBAs Networks/Coordinations Data Sharing Principle (Support) Infrastructure (Broker/GCI) Short/ Long Term Activates/ Individuals a draft to address the coordination

16. Would be next… • Workshop? Regional or National? To push and pull on this way to future development • GEO Work Plan Symposium, at June, 2013, some of the program would join in, and it is better to have a talk on this Cold Region specifically • GEO Plenary, January, 2014 • GEO Ministerial Summit, January, 2014

17. --Additional Slides--

18. Polar Space Task Group - PSTG • The group shall review cryosphere and polar scientific requirements, including user needs and observational requirements stemming from, but not limited to GCOS, the IGOS-P Cryosphere Theme Report, the WMO Expert Team on Satellite Utilization and Products (ET-SUP), and the specific needs of the WMO Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), SCAR/IASC and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO); –What is specifically needed for 3rd pole (ECPORS VI) <the low latitude> by PSTG

19. The CORE of Cold Region – GCW Development WMO • The IGOS Cryosphere Theme was developed primarily to assess current capabilities and requirements for cryospheric observations • Over 100 recommendations provide the basis for subsequent actions. But who will take action? 2008 Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) by GCW

20. Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW) The 15th World Meteorological Congress (May 2007) welcomed the proposal of Canada to create a WMO Global Cryosphere Watch. Congress requested the WMO Inter-commission Task Group on IPY to establish a group to prepare recommendations for GCW development. A legacy of IPY A component of WIGOS A contribution to GEOSS The WMO Executive Council panel on Polar Observations, Research, and Services (EC-PORS) oversees GCW by GCW

21. What is the Conservation of Arctic Flora & Fauna (CAFF)? • Working Group of the Arctic Council • Focus on biodiversity • Board members from: • 8 Arctic countries • 6 Indigenous organisations • Observers from: • International organisations • Non Arctic countries • Secretariat in Akureyri, Iceland From CAFF – Web sites

22. By Terry C., INTERACT

25. The central node in the global monitoring of the High Arctic SIOS Vision: Establish a cooperating and transparent research infrastructure which will give better estimates of the future environmental and climate changes in the Arctic.

26. SIOS in a nutshell • Build an interdisciplinary environmental research and monitoring infrastructure capable of observing the Earth system in the Arctic and providing the observational basis for verification of Earth System models in this region. • Integrate the studies of: • Geophysical, • chemical and • biological processes for all monitoring platforms (ocean, ice, terrestrial, atmosphere) • Establish aKnowledge Centre

27. Thank you! GEO Cold Region: COLD-REGION@list.geosec.org